Bad Sci-Fi Flashback: Happy Days in Space

Posted by James Daly

10 years ago

This week the Sci-Fi Department looks at some of the best and worst time travel movies. But I have to take a moment to remind everyone of a bizarrely bad time-travel TV show: Fonz and the Happy Days Gang was a 1980 cartoon show that followed Fonz, Ralph Malph and Ritchie Cunningham as they became unstuck in time. They ricocheted through history in a UFO with a futuristic hottie named Cupcake (voiced by Didi Cohn, who you may remember as Frenchie in Grease), and because it was the early ’80s there was an obligatory cute animal — in this case Fonz’s dog Mr. Cool (voiced by veteran dog-voice actor Frank Welker.)

In keeping with the pre-JFK Assasiantion Americana, the show was narrated by Wolfman Jack. And it was part of an ABC Saturday morning cartoon block that also included Laverne and Shirley in the Army, where the two women are bossed around by a pig drill sergeant voiced by Horshack from Welcome Back Kotter fame. Those lazy mornings may be long past, but they live on in our hearts, and on YouTube.